The effect of yeast on the brewing of mead

One of the benefits of home brewing your own mead is that
you can experiment with new ingredients and ideas. Yeast is a prime candidate.The yeast used in champagne is commonly used
for mead. Ok but why? Does it really make a difference? Tests were certainly in
order to see if these choices are correct.

The recipeTo make sure only the yeast is tested I made one large batch
for all the smaller tests.15 pounds of honey1 tsp gypsum1 tsp Irish moss1 gallon of water

Heated mixture at 155 degrees for 15 minutes.Don't get the water boiling as that will take
away some of the smell and alter the honey. Though they do not hurt the final mead, the gypsum and Irish
moss aren't really needed. Having made my must, I poured 1 gallon into 5 separate
carboys.

In each gallon carboy I added 1/4 tsp of Yeast Energizer and 1/4
tsp of Yeast Nutrient. Simply put these act like caffeine and vitamins for the
yeast. Each separate test had a specific gravity of 1.13 with a
potential alcohol of 17%

Our candidates for testingThe following are the five different types of yeast that I
used.

Lalvin EC-1118. A traditional champagne yeast. It's a
tough strain that can finish very dry in the harshest of conditions.Lalvin K1-V1116. A white wine yeast. White wine is closer
to mead then red wine though neither is ideal.Red Star Premier Cuvee. Similar to the K1-V1116 but made
by a different company.Red Star Pasteur Champagne.Would two champagne yeasts of different
brands matter?Red Star Montrachet. I chose 2 champagnes and 2 white
wines so I wanted something different and went with a red wine yeast.

Starting off my experimentI added the dry yeast straight into each experiment.
Normally you want to follow the manufacturer's direction on re-hydrating and
waking up the yeast so they aren't shocked when placed into the must. However
for the sake of this experiment I put them straight in.

Lalvin EC-1118: Sank straight to the bottom and didn't
dissolve but eventually floated back up. EC-1118 is traditionally known to be
one of the toughest strains and they apparently are the heaviest.Lalvin K1-V1116: This had the most noticeable yeast smell
but nothing to indicate a problem|Red Star Premier Cuvee: Floated on the top but didn't
really dissolve.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: Even though bubbles formed
quickly the yeast would have to go through its lag phase before it went to
active work on the honey so this was probably a by-product of it adapting to
the water.Red Star Montrachet: The Red Star red wine yeast foamed
up quite a bit but no bubbles

An hour laterI was probably over eager but I checked back in only one
hour to see how the yeast was adapting to their new environment. Fermentation
still wouldn't start up for another day.Lalvin EC-1118: Still in pellet form and it's not
dissolving into the individual yeast cells.Lalvin K1-V1116: The K1-V1116 is acting as expected and
is dissolved and spreading out.Red Star Premier Cuvee: No foam on top but there were
noticeable bubbles formed.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: Highest amount of bubbles and
seemed to be the most active. Being champagne yeast I was not surprised.Red Star Montrachet: Clear surface with neither bubbles
nor foam.

One day later...The meads are still very young and the different yeast
strains have big tasks ahead of them to eat through the honey to make mead.
After only one day there is nothing yet to measure so we'll have to stick to
visual observations.Lalvin EC-1118: The champagne yeast had a slow start but
its active now with bubbles visible in the must.Lalvin K1-V1116: Very little activity but there is a few
bubbles rising in the must so I know that the yeast is at least active.Red Star Premier Cuvee:The top of the surface is pretty clear but bubbles rising in the must to
the top tells us it's just fine.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: Clear surface on top. This is
noticeably the strongest and fastest yeast with lots of bubbles rising and
popping on the surface. It's definitely beating out the Lalvin champagne yeast.Red Star Montrachet: The red wine yeast is coming along
at a good pace for being in an environment it's not designed to be in.

One Week later...The yeast should be well past the lag phase and reproduced
enough of themselves to be making major progress through the yeast. I measure
activity based upon the number of air bubbles released through each airlock per
hour. It will give a good idea who is working the fastest and hardest.Lalvin EC-1118: 5 bubbles/minute. The Lalvin champagne
has a very large amount of yeast that has settled to the bottom. Lots of
reproduction of yeast has occurred in here.Lalvin K1-V1116: 5 bubbles/minute. The other carboys do
not have any residue bubbles on the top they burst cleanly. Here though we have
bubbles sitting on the top without bursting. That shouldn't cause any problems
and is more of an observation.Red Star Premier Cuvee: 5 bubbles/minute. Nothing unique
it's going along and working.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: 7 bubbles/minute. Very active
and working the hardest. Lots of activity can be seen in the must with bubbles
rising everywhere to the surface.Red Star Montrachet: 4 bubbles/minute. The slowest in
terms of consumption of honey but nothing to be concerned about.

End of Week 2Having past the two week mark, we can now draw hydrometer
samples to measure our progress.1.000
is pure water and we started with 1.13.I'm not one to waste any mead so I also
taste each sample that I've pulled out to see its effect.Lalvin EC-1118: 1.022 SG. Even though the EC-1118 had the
longest lag phase it's taken off and is racing through its honeyLalvin K1-V1116: 1.054 SG. The white wine yeast is
progressing nicely and right on schedule with what I expected.On interesting observation, the lees are not
compact. The other strains of yeast have the old yeast cells settle down to o
the bottom and compact together into a solid layer of yeast.Red Star Premier Cuvee:1.024 SG. A little bit ahead of schedule and all the strains are doing
well. The yeast nutrient and energizer I believe really helped them all.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: 1.016 SG. It is the furthest
along and really no surprise based on the bubble activity from the previous
week. It now has the most amount of yeast along the bottom of the carboy.Red Star Montrachet 1.036 SG. I was surprised that it had
made more progress than the K1-1116 white wine strain. At the end of week 1 it
had the most less so this strain goes straight to reproducing and then switches
over to eating the sugar. They seemed to no longer be interested in making more
of themselves.

Another 2 weeks pass...I now rack them to a fresh carboy as they have gone through
their honey.Lalvin EC-1118: 0.994 SG. As expected, the champagne
yeast went through almost all of the sugar and we only have water and alcohol
left. The yeast compacted very tightly on the bottom. I tasted my sample and it's
not dry at all and more of a semisweet even though there wasn't much sugar
left. Its holding up its reputation for being a good mead yeast.Lalvin K1-V1116: 1.018 SG. Still a good deal of honey
left and it seemed to have had a hard time to get through the honey compared to
the other ones. Personally I prefer 1.000 â€“ 1.009 so this is a bit too sweet
but this is an experiment more than making it correctly. I transfer the yeast
anyway. The flavor is too hard to tell as it's still too much honey for me.Red Star Premier Cuvee:0.994 SG. This too finished off all the sugar left. The taste was very
unpleasant and alcohol but keep in mind, mead and wine are aged for months so I
am not surprised.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: 0.998 SG. Another yeast that
finished all its honey. The smell is the most defining feature and it's
completely neutral. That's something to keep in mind when picking yeast in the
future on if you want a bouquet or not.Red Star Montrachet:1.01 SG. The Montrachet would normally need another week to get through
the rest of the honey. The taste was quite nice and had the fullest mouth feel
very similar to a red wine. Nothing different was done to this mead so it all
had to come from the yeast.

The last evaluations and samples of drawnI take one last
sample to measure and taste before they get bottled in another week or two
after the experiment is completed.Lalvin EC-1118: 0.994 SG. It's definitely done and the
taste is still young and rough though it kept its semisweet flavor. A good 6
months of waiting will turn this into a good mead and this is a good mead
yeast. It reached the lowest sugar level of all of them showing that it does
deserve its reputation for being hard working yeast that will work no matter what.Lalvin K1-V1116: 1.014 SG a little more progress. I'm not
surprised it kept fermenting. Normally I would have let it continue and finish
out the honey. Its rate slowed down because I siphoned off the majority of the
yeast and the left over ones are fewer to continue the fermentation.This might make a good yeast strain if you
have extra time to wait for it.Red Star Premier Cuvee: 0.995 SG more honey? I attribute
the rise in specific gravity to be a measurement error. At the third decimal
point we are talking about 1 or 2 millimeter difference on the hydrometer. The
flavor is very dry and very young. It seemed to have pulled out the flavor of
the honey along with the sweetness. An ideal dry white wine but not the
characteristics I want in mead.Red Star Pasteur Champagne: 0.998 SG no change. Clearly
the best tasting of the dry meads though nothing I would want to serve guests
without several months of aging.Red Star Montrachet: 1.008 SG. The yeast is still
fermenting away as it should as there is still honey left. The fullness of
flavor has decreased but is still noticeable.

Wrapping up the experimentAll 5 strains of yeast did what they are supposed to: eat
the sugar in the honey into alcohol. However they each had very different ways
of going about it and leaving behind different after effects in scent and taste.I believe it is obvious from this experiment
that yeast choice does impact the final mead very much. A mead maker has a lot
of choices in what they want their final mead to taste and smell like and
proper yeast choice is indeed important as shown by this experiment.